Possessed
by aszecsei
Summary: Sylar rescues Claire from a prison and she begins to accept him...AU after 3x18 "Exposed."  Extended by popular request  well, three people .
1. Possessed

"Please don't hurt me," Claire said, looking up at the tall man standing over her. She wished she could move, or at least try to escape, but spine was taking its sweet time to heal.

He looked down at the blonde cheerleader at his feet. "Why on earth would I do that?" he asked. Her only response was a whimper of fear.

_Maybe it's the fact that over thirty people are lying around us in a pool of their own blood_, his Voice of Reason whispered.

"Claire, I'm going to pick you up," he said. She didn't respond, just stared at him, eyes glassy. He bent down and scooped her to his chest. She burrowed her face into the crook of his shoulder. "The others should be waking up soon, and I don't want to be around when they do," he said. "None of _them_ know that I'm not here to kill them."

"You…you aren't? What…why?"

"Because Danko is a pest," he responded. "He's irritated me for the last time, and I might need their help to get rid of him."

There was a _snap_ as her spine reconnected. "Can you walk?" asked Sylar.

She didn't want to admit that his embrace was more comforting than frightening, and pretended that she couldn't move her legs well. "No," she said, and felt him shudder. _Damn it_, she thought, _I forgot that he's a walking lie detector_.

"I don't like it when people lie to me, Claire," he told her. "But I'll let it slide this once."

"Thanks," she whispered, and he looked down in shock.

"For what?" he asked.

"Saving me, saving all of us. For, well, for everything."

He looked up, grinning in the dark. "Well, you _are_ mine. And I won't let anything happen to _my_ Claire."

For some reason she couldn't explain, this reassured her more than it frightened her. She clung to him tightly as they escaped the horror that had been her prison.


	2. Obsessed

**A/N: Reviews make the story continue!**

**_Fifteen Minutes Ago:_**

Small strands of memory were coming to her, little vignettes, dim and confusing.

A text from Rebel, telling her that her free pass was expired.

Agents bursting through the door, her body twitching as millions of volts of electricity were unloaded into her body.

The humiliation of having a shunt put in her nose, slipping into unconsciousness even as she was put into a bag and carried from the house.

Then, _his_ face, just another addition to the nightmare. He was looking down at her with a smirk, his face hazily coming into focus.

"S…Sylar," she said hoarsely. She hadn't been using her vocal cords for the past two days, and it sounded like it.

"Cheerleader," said Sylar, strangely chipper. "How have you been holding up?"

"What do you want?" she asked. _He's probably working with Danko_, she thought. _Scum stick together_.

"You," he replied, no change in facial expression.

"You got my ability," she said to him. "What more do you want?"

"Didn't I tell you already, Claire? You're not like the others. You're special."

She groaned. "What are you going to do?"

"Well, first I'm going to untie you," he said. "Don't even think of attacking me or else the agents will have put that shunt back in your nose before you can say cheese."

True to his word, he began to untie her restraints.

"What agents?" she asked. She couldn't see anyone besides _him_.

"The ones trying to get through the doors and come down here," he replied, and there was a silence as he worked.

"What about the rest?" she finally asked. "What are you going to do to them?"

He didn't answer, instead lifting her up and carrying her through the doorway. The hallway was dimly lit, and he could already hear footfalls down the corridor. The alarm had been raised faster than he'd expected.

"I'm going to put you down," said Sylar, and the lights went out.

He gently set her feet down before turning in a lazy circle, his telekinesis a blade that extended down the entire corridor. There was a gunshot. He waited for the pain, but there was none. Not even the tingle that let him know he was healing.

He realized what had happened the exact moment the lights came back on.

"Claire!" he hissed, and looked down.

One of the guards must have fired before he could be scalped, and Claire lay on the floor, a hole punched straight through her spinal column.


	3. Distressed

"So," she said, unable to bear the silence for more than ten minutes, "I'm yours now?"

"You've always been mine," he told her. "You just didn't know it. And, to tell you the truth, neither did I."

He pulled over at a cheap motel and got out of the car. She hesitated before following. Strange as it was, she was safest with Sylar.

He got two queen-sized beds, and they drove around to their room – 108. She took a shower first, and when she came out, dressed only in her undergarments, she asked him to look away until she got under the covers. He did so, and then took his own shower.

He came out clad only in his boxers, skin still damp, hair still wet. Little rivulets of water sat on his shoulders, and Claire couldn't help but admire them. _For a killer, he's kind of cute_, she thought, and then berated herself for that line of thought. She would only stay with him until the threat was gone. After that, she was going home with her dad.

Her dad.

What had happened to him to get her free pass revoked? Was he dead? It seemed like that was the only way. Either he had been killed accidentally, or Danko had seen his powers and then killed him. Otherwise, he would've come for her.

The overwhelming thought crushed her. Nathan was dead.

"Claire, what's wrong?" asked Sylar. She hadn't even noticed that she'd been sobbing.

She sniffled but couldn't spit out the words. _My father is dead_, she wanted to scream, but it just wouldn't come out.

"Claire," he continued, "come here." She mindlessly obeyed, and was shocked when he hugged her and sat down on the edge of the bed. She was sitting on his lap before she knew it, sobbing into his shoulder.

He did his best to comfort her, stroking the back of her head and murmuring in her ear.

Not that that was the only thing on his mind, of course. He was acutely aware of how soft her bottom was, and how she was pressed tightly against him, a few strips of fabric away from bare skin. He needed only to flick his finger and she would be revealed to him in all her glory, all her goddess-like beauty. But now was not the time.

Now was when he needed to be strong and ignore temptation. He needed to be there for her when she was sad and lonely, he needed to comfort her without reminding her that he had killed more of her family members than Danko.

That didn't mean he couldn't dream, though.


	4. Blessed

The first thing she saw when she woke up was _him_. There wasn't any doubt as to who she was talking about; there was only one man in her life now.

Hopefully that would change soon.

_Is that really what you want?_ she asked herself. _Do you really want him to leave?_

The truth was scarier than any boogeyman. _No. I don't._

She looked at his muscles, tracing his outline in the light filtering through the curtains. She jumped when he spoke; she hadn't realized he was awake until now.

"Where do you want to go, Claire?" Sylar asked.

She jumped, the bed creaking as her weight suddenly shifted, and she almost fell out of bed before she regained her balance. She swore she felt something holding her up, but that was silly. Why would Sylar care if she _fell out of bed_?

"Home," she said truthfully. "And before you go all high and mighty about how that's impossible, I _know_ I can't go back there, I just wish I could."

"What if you could?" asked Sylar. He'd been waiting to put this idea to her for some time now, and it was as good a moment as any. "What if you didn't have to live your life always looking over your shoulder, always being the victim?"

She stared at his dim form for what felt like hours. It felt like days to Sylar, but due to some chronometry power he'd picked up, he knew that it was exactly 3.556 seconds. He was tempted to go down another degree of precision, but decided against it. It wasn't exactly a useful thing for him to be doing.

"How?" she finally asked. "What could we do?"

"Present a united front," Sylar told her. "Everybody hates me. I, well, I don't hate everybody per se, I just don't care about their wellbeing. But if it means that you'll be safer and happier, I'd help them out."

"You'd rescue everyone else? For me?"

"Well, it'll be difficult, they'll probably want to kill me, et cetera, so I'll probably just shapeshift and pretend to be someone else to gain their trust."

"Trust me on this, as much as that sounds like a good idea, it isn't. It never is, it always backfires at a critical moment. Seriously, that's what happens in _every single movie_. It'd be a lot easier just to limit your interaction with everyone else, and let me do the talking."

"If you insist."

* * *

He had gone hunting later that night. It was easier to think of it that way, when he could dehumanize the people he killed. He knew it would be difficult to infiltrate the government _again_, so he stocked up. After the fourth body was disposed of, he felt he could handle a few weeks without killing again. Hopefully his hunger had been satiated. If not, he didn't know what would happen. Would he go insane from starvation? Would he kill someone close to Claire? Would she ever forgive him again?

He blocked his mind. He was not going to be thinking about possibilities. What-ifs never got anybody anywhere. He needed to focus.

_Ah hell_, he thought, seeing a woman walk down the street, unaware of the potential inside her head, _another one won't hurt. Well, it'll hurt _someone_, but not me._ With that comforting thought, he began to stalk his prey.

* * *

She had woken up when he was gone. Her first thought was that he had abandoned her. Then, she had tried the door to find it sealed shut. She then realized what he must be doing.

The excuses came too easily to her. _It's his nature_, she thought. _He doesn't want to be a monster, but he is. If he needs to kill, I'll just have to deal with it, at least for now. Once everyone's safe – safer,_ she corrected herself, _we'll work on it together._

He had walked in a few minutes later. She couldn't see his hands, but she could imagine them: red, dripping, covered in blood. He walked to the sink and began to wash his hands. She tried to pretend that she was sleeping when he started talking.

"I hope that's enough to carry me through the weeks it'll take," he said. "I don't want to hurt anybody I need around, that's the last thing we need."

She was finding it harder to keep her breaths even. _In through the nose, out through the mouth. Or is it the other way around? This is so useless._

"There's no point in pretending to sleep, Claire, I can hear your heart hammering from a mile away," he said, smirking into the mirror and shutting the water off.

"Who did you kill?" she breathed out.

"Three men," he admitted, "and two women. I got terrakinesis, hemokinesis, heightened smell, some kind of pheromone control, and the ability to run without my shoelaces coming untied."

She snorted at the last one.

"What?" he asked defensively. "Let me tell you, it sucks when you're sprinting and you have to deal with a flopping shoe."

"I guess not all of us can be gifted with immortality, eh?" she snorted.

* * *

Outside the window, a man listened to the exchange with a look of rage on his face. He had promised he wouldn't do anything, but this was too much to bear. He slammed open the door to find Claire and Sylar sitting together like some sort of sick couple.

Claire turned around and froze.

"Dad?"

* * *

**A/N: Yeah, cliffhangers make me feel bad. But they make me happy in some sadistic sort of way.**

**Claire is dangerously genre-savvy. We should watch how close she comes to discovering the truth: that she lives in a television show!**

**Okay, I'm not so cruel as to start a serious work and let it devolve into parody, but come on. Some of the plot devices I've been reading are so overused, it makes TVTropes blush.**

**Anyway, I'm doing a lot of stuff right now - working on a Terminator Interactive Fiction adaptation, to be maybe followed by a Heroes adaptation. Plus, college is stressful. Whine, moan, complain, et cetera. But the next chapter should be up relatively soon (as in, a double-header like last time!)  
**


	5. Redressed

He glared at his daughter, who had one minute been cuddling with his would-be killer, and the next was hugging him. "Oh, thank god," he heard her say. "I thought you were dead! When you didn't come to rescue me, I thought…oh thank god you're alive!" she finished.

"Are you done?" he coldly asked.

"What?" She pulled away. "What's wrong?"

"You want to know why I didn't come? It was because I was on the run from bastards who knew exactly what I could do. And do you know why they knew that? This son of a bitch tipped them off."

He pointed one shaking finger at Sylar. He'd always believed that the phrase "seeing red" was an exaggeration, but everything really did have a pinkish hue.

"Why on Earth would I do that?" asked the killer, holding up his hands. He was actually trying to look _innocent_, for crying out loud.

"So you could get to _her_!" he shouted. "So you could pervert my daughter!" He dropped his finger and turned to Claire. "How many times has he fucked you?" he asked. Her eyes widened at the blunt question. "How many fucking times?"

"I am not _that_ depraved, Nathan," Sylar said. If he could have ripped that bastard's throat out right then and there, he would've.

"Oh, really?" he asked sarcastically. "And how depraved are you? Depraved enough to murder five innocent people in one night?"

"There are worse things you can do to someone than to have sex with them," Sylar continued calmly. "I have done those things to Claire. I have poked around in her brain, I have murdered her friends before her eyes, and I have forced her mother to die. I do not need to think of her as some sort of 'conquest' as well."

He thrust out a sheet of paper, folded into quarters. "Explain this, then," he said, his voice shaking. Sylar took the paper and unfolded it. Claire looked at the words, written in a looping cursive.

"Nathan Petrelli is a pilot without a plane," it read. "The higher he is, the harder he'll fall." The signature at the bottom read a single word. The name of a German watch.

"Sylar."

"That's not his handwriting," Claire said immediately. "I've seen it, that's not his handwriting or his signature."

"I don't know how you did this, but I will not allow my daughter to stay with you." With that, he steered Claire out the door.

* * *

_Sylar stood in front of Danko's door. He needed Claire to take down Danko, but Claire would never trust him with her father around. He pulled out a sheet of paper and wrote down two sentences that would be incriminating enough. He wrote with his right hand to make the letters different from his own handwriting, and then signed his name with far too many flourishes to be his own signature. Just in case Claire ever came across this paper, he'd hope it would be enough to convince her that he hadn't been involved._

_He folded the paper into quarters and slid it under the door._

_He walked away, whistling jauntily. Today was going to be a grand day.

* * *

_

**A/N: I just couldn't end this without Sylar being a conniving bastard. His intentions are almost always good, but his methods…well, they leave a lot to be desired. Let's leave it at that, shall we?**


	6. Processed

**A/N: Apologies for the late update. I wanted to get ahead on the story so I at least knew where it was heading...this is the first time I've ever had chapters written but waited to post them! I feel so accomplished now! I'm currently staying with family, so don't expect another update anytime this week. Of course, I may update anyway...in which case it'll just be a pleasant surprise.**

**Enough of me rambling; let's get to the Sylaire you've all been waiting for!  
**

Sylar cursed, running his hands through his hair. She had been _right there_, standing in front of him…and then that son of a bitch Nathan Petrelli had ripped her away from him. It seemed like the only purpose in the Senator's existence was to make his life difficult.

It had been too tempting to just kill the politician when he'd first arrived, spoiling his moment with Claire. But then Claire would've been angry; she would've lost her father twice in two days.

He mentally slapped himself. Brooding came naturally, but it wouldn't help in this situation. He felt he could salvage it somehow, but he needed to figure out just how he was going to do that.

He didn't think it'd be a problem.

After all, he _was_ Sylar.

First things first: Claire. She was the most important of all his problems. Her requirements were simple: don't lose Nathan, keep her with him.

Which led to Nathan Petrelli. The knot in his plans. If only Danko had killed the cockroach instead of just pushing him out a window…

_That isn't helping_, he thought. _What's done is done._

So: optimally, Nathan would trust him with Claire. He wasn't sure exactly how that was going to happen.

He could, of course, wait until the annoying politician was dead of natural causes, and then go after Claire. Their immortality would mean that he could afford to wait out just about everyone.

Except he wasn't a patient man. Not in the slightest.

He could kill himself until Petrelli was dead. But then he'd want to return for his Claire, and he didn't trust anyone other than the Cheerleader herself with his life. And he couldn't get her help, because of - guess who - Nathan fucking Petrelli.

Killing the Senator was out of the question as well.

Creeping around Claire, waiting for Nathan to let his guard down - that was a vague possibility, but too short-term for Sylar's tastes.

Which left one option: getting Petrelli to trust him. He needed some kind of way to do that. Perhaps rescuing them when - or, he reminded himself, if - they ran into trouble.

An idea struck him. Danko could actually make himself useful before he died. He'd need to find Claire and Nathan first, though.

Not that that would be a problem in the slightest.

After all…

He _was_ Sylar.


	7. Abreast

Molly Walker was home from school. In a good mood, but that was ruined when she walked into her room to find _him_, lounging on her bed as though nothing were wrong. As though he weren't a serial killer who happened to be _in her bedroom_.

Her mouth was open to scream before she realized it, but he quickly sat up and used his telekinesis to cut off her airway before she could alert anyone to his presence.

She realized that anyone running in to save her would be putting themselves in danger, and - after all - they wouldn't exactly be likely to succeed in their heroic attempt. She closed her mouth.

"Let's not make this difficult," he said softly. "You have something I need. I'm going to get it."

She was already dead, she realized. She simply couldn't understand why _he_ was putting on this show beforehand. He had killed her parents without a word; why wasn't he doing the same to her?

"How was your day?" he asked, releasing the hold he had on her voice.

She was so shocked by the question that she completely forgot to respond.

He waited impatiently for a few seconds before flopping down on her bed again. "I forgot how annoying it is to talk to preteens," he moaned softly.

"Why don't you just get it over with and kill me?" she asked finally.

"I wasn't planning on killing you," he told her. "Of course, if you _want_ me to, I'd be more than happy to oblige."

She started out hesitantly, then picked up speed. Talking about school, her foster parents, her new crush…

She lost track of time as she spilled out her life's story to the serial killer.

For his part, he subtly directed the conversation. For all the bother it took to get her started, it really was painless to direct the flow of her thoughts to her powers.

"What does it feel like? To find someone?" he asked.

"Well, I just think about them. About every facet of them - physically, mentally. Their personality, everything I know about them," she responded.

"That isn't what I asked," he said. "I want to know how you _feel_, not what you _do_."

"Why should I tell you? Why do you care?"

_Dammit_, he thought. _And things were going so _well.

"Because once you do, you'll be safe - at least from me," he responded. "Just answer the question."

"I feel like I know them," she said, frowning a little. "A little comfortable with them…like I'm walking in their shoes."

"Empathy," Sylar commented.

"Yeah."

"Fuck," he said, not particularly caring that he was in the same room as a nine-year-old. "Empathy always was my weak suit."

He focused, however, delving deep. He thought of Claire: everything. Her life, her father - both of them, actually - everything he'd gleaned from her when Stephen Canfield nearly killed them both, Danko, her betrayal when it wasn't Nathan, not Peter, not Noah but _Sylar_ who had rescued her…

And then he felt it. He could feel where she was. He was practically in her mind…

Actually, he was in her mind. And currently, Nathan was on the receiving end of some _very_ obscene thoughts. He grinned at the verbal abuse.

"What?" asked Molly.

"Claire is really, _really_ mad," he smirked at her. "Thanks, by the way. I think you'd like it if I left right now?"

"What did you do?"

"I took your power. See? You're safe. I don't have any reason to hurt you now."

"Why don't you do that to everyone? Why kill them?"

Sylar rolled his eyes. "It took one hour, twenty three minutes and forty eight seconds to get your power, Molly. On average, it takes two minutes to kill someone and get their power." He shrugged. "Killing is just more efficient."

She sighed, and he took it as his cue to leave.

"Why didn't you kill me then?" she asked as he put one foot out her window.

"I kill people who don't deserve their powers, who are too afraid of themselves to fully embrace their own nature. You use your power. I don't want to kill you."

"You've killed people who used their powers before," she told him as he prepared to leave again. He growled, exasperated. He didn't want to explain _every single kill he'd ever made _ to this girl.

"Sometimes I just lose control, Molly," he smiled over his shoulder. "But like I said, don't worry. You're safe for now. Unless you decide to interfere with my plans, I don't see a need to involve myself in your business. Nor Matt Parkman, since it appears I can hear thoughts as well."

She looked a little frightened at that, and he grinned again. "See you around, Molly. Though I hope not…for your sake."

And with that ominous note, he dropped out her window, and into the sky.


	8. Impressed

Claire Bennet was not happy in the slightest. She'd been ripped away from Sylar - her savior, the one who'd actually rescued her - by Nathan Petrelli. Whom she was currently pressed to, hundreds of feet in the air.

A stream of verbal abuse was running through her mind as it tingled. Something - or someone, she realized - very familiar. Her savior. He was coming for her.

The man she was currently abusing, she realized, might actually be in danger. If he had provoked Sylar too much, he might even be about to die.

She leaned close to him. "You know, I'm really worried about you."

"Why's that?" he asked, still angry with her for cuddling the serial killer who had killed her own mother. Meredith Gordon might not have been his wife, but he still felt for her - and he was rightfully pissed at the man who'd murdered her in cold blood.

"You might just've provoked Sylar too much," she told him, struggling to be heard above the whooshing wind. "If I'm not mistaken, he's coming after me."

"Then I'll kill him," Nathan responded immediately. "I should've just killed him when I got the chance, when I first got into that hotel room."

"Wow, dad, I never expected Sylar to be more of a humanitarian than you," she snarked in his ear.

"You're treading on thin ice, Claire," he warned her.

"You already broke through, dad," she said. "You were dead to me as soon as you started leading a crusade against our own kind."

"I did that because of people like Sylar," Nathan said. "People need to be protected against specials with psychopathic tendencies."

"Not according to you," she yelled at him. "Apparently, people need to be protected against specials, period."

Sylar was telekinetically flying. He felt positive that Nathan's power would be more useful, but he found it just about impossible to empathize with the man. He pulled out a cell phone after looking at a street sign - one of the five powers he'd taken that night was telescopic sight. Another had been night vision. "Hello, is this Emile Danko? How I got this number is not important. What is important is that Nathan and Claire Petrelli are currently flying along I-43, mile marker 72. I could send you GPS coordinates, if you like. Okay, good -"

He was cut off as Danko hung up. Shaking his head at the other man's nerve, he typed Claire's current latitude and longitude, added on a short delay, and hit send. He followed the bickering pair at a distance, watching for the agents that were sure to come running.

They didn't disappoint. A van stopped silently, and a sniper rifle was aimed at the pair. _Shit!_ thought Sylar. _If they hurt Claire…_

He relaxed as the man loaded a tranquilizer into the gun, took aim, and fired.

It hit Nathan dead-on. Sylar might have had something to do with the impeccable aim.

The pair dropped like stones, falling to the floor. Sylar frowned, slowing their fall - but not enough to alert either of them to his presence. The last thing he needed was questions about his perfect timing.

Claire twisted her leg back into place. Nathan, it appeared, had dislocated a shoulder and shattered both legs. If he wasn't given medical care quickly, the leg would set wrong and they'd have to re-break it. And judging by Danko's view of specials as inhuman, chances were they wouldn't be granted medical care.

Claire got up, trying to pick up her father, when the agents arrived. One of them got out a taser, and shot two prongs of sparking electricity into her, causing her muscles to spasm. The handcuffs were on shortly after that.

Nathan screamed when they put the cuffs on, ignoring his shoulder and legs. Much as she was pissed at her father for taking her away from her protection and practically delivering her to the agents, she cringed at his yell of pain. Sometimes she wished he wasn't her father so she could be completely pissed at him.

She was picked up and shoved into the van before she heard something she could never mistake.

A presence, a voice in her head, reassuring her:

_I'll always come for you, Claire_.

To say that Sylar was pissed would be an understatement. He'd been too distracted by slowing Claire and Nathan's fall that he'd missed the agents sneaking up on them. And then he'd been too slow to make a dramatic stand in front of both of them.

He got into Claire's head (which was becoming disturbingly easy for him) and sent her a telepathic message before dropping to the ground and positioning himself so that both Claire in the truck and Nathan on the ground could see his display.

And then he got down to business. He beheaded, electrocuted, conflagrated, mangled, disintegrated, and liquefied until not a single agent was left standing. He went to Claire and melted her cuffs, lifting her from the van. She squeaked in a much-too-cute fashion, leaving him breathless for a few seconds. Then he remembered the primary purpose of his display: the politician.

When he got to the Senator, he groaned. _Of course_, he thought. _He _would_ pass out on me_.


	9. Suppressed

**A/N: I'm sorry! I had to switch computers (when making short films, it's insane how quickly you can fill up a 500 GB hard drive) and, uh, haven't transferred over my fanfics. Meaning that I'm rewriting all the chapters I'd gotten done before, so updates will most likely come at odd intervals, as the writing bug strikes me.**

**I bought the rights to Heroes, so now I can send Sylar out after people who don't review. Yeah. Your days are numbered.**

Nathan Petrelli woke up in a rather comfortable bed, in a room that was not his own. His mind was a little fuzzy, and he cast back his memory. He'd been flying with Claire, escaping Danko and Sylar and everyone else who wanted to get their paws on _his girl_.

Then someone had shot him down from the sky. He'd broken bones before, but nothing like _that_. It was all over, he thought, Danko had them in his clutches, neither he nor Claire could escape -

And there _he_ was, like some dark angel, killing and killing and killing.

After watching some hapless agent get his testicles pulled out through his esophagus, Nathan had passed out.

And now he was here. He didn't think it was Sylar who had taken him - the decor was too light, beiges and maroons and blues just didn't scream "psychotic murderer" at him.

His door suddenly opened and he got a faceful of blonde hair. He relaxed into Claire's hug, and when she pulled back, he looked directly at her. Which meant he got the full effect of the punch she landed.

Claire was here.

Sylar would never leave Claire.

_Sylar was here._

* * *

"He hates me," Sylar said. "I don't think my face being the first thing he sees is the best thing right now."

Claire sighed. "Fine. But I don't want to see him either."

Shiver. She was lying.

"I told you I don't like it when people lie to me, Claire."

She glanced down. "Sorry."

"Hm. Go talk to him."

She nodded. "I...I won't leave you, you know that? Even after this is all done."

"I would've thought you couldn't wait to be rid of me."

"I probably would have. Then, well, then I got to see a bit past the boogeyman. You still scare me, but...it's better to have you on our side than against us."

Sylar grabbed her arm. "Are you sure about that?" He walked closer to her, pulling her flush to his body. "An all-you-can-eat buffet?"

"There'll always be those opposing us. And if I'm in danger...they'll already be dead."

Sylar grinned widely. "Clever girl." He pressed a light kiss to the top of her head, then pulled away quickly.

Too much? Too soon? He tried to gauge her reaction. She was staring at his chest.

"I'll see you soon," was all she said before she went into Nathan's room. He waited for some sound. There was a flump, presumably when she jumped on the bed, and then...

WHACK! Sylar cringed in sympathy. He was really glad he wasn't in Nathan's place right now.

"Where is he?" Nathan growled.

"In the hallway," Claire said. "And if you _ever_ kidnap me again, I will make Sylar look like a harmless kitten."

Sylar smiled. That was his girl.

* * *

"So when is this whole rescue operation thingy going down?"

Sylar bit his lip. "Tomorrow morning," he said. "About you coming along -"

"If you even think for _one moment_ that you're leaving me behind I will destroy you."

Sylar laughed. "Claire, do you really have to convince me that you can look after yourself?"

Claire had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "Oh. Then what?"

Sylar handed over a pistol. "Since your powers are defensive, you should have some sort of weapon. Know how to use one of these?"

Claire shook her head.

"Okay. First: do not point at anything you do not want to die. Doesn't matter if it's unloaded, the safety's on: you keep it pointed at things you want to become dead."

Claire hastily pointed the gun away from Sylar's abdomen.

"This is the safety. If it's on, the gun won't shoot. This is on, this is off." He flicked the safety.

"And finally, this is the trigger. You point and squeeze. Do not jerk or your aim will be shot. A nice, steady squeeze."

* * *

"Sylar?"

He hadn't been expecting Nathan to want to talk to him. Ever.

"Yeah?" he stuck his head in the doorway.

"Claire told me that you used your blood to revive me."

"Yeah," he shrugged. "Seemed like the thing to do at the time."

Nathan sighed. "Right. I just want to say...I'm sorry. For, uh, kidnapping Claire, and insulting you. Repeatedly."

Sylar raised an eyebrow. "I deserve it. For what I've done...nothing I can do can redeem me. No apology necessary."

"Fine. But, uh, thanks."

Sylar started to leave when Nathan spoke again. "Oh, and Sylar? You hurt Claire, and I will make you wish you weren't immortal, because every second of your existence will be filled with pain. Do you understand?"

Sylar nodded. "I'd never hurt her intentionally."

"Good."

Sylar withdrew. Enough talking. The next morning, he'd be on the offensive. Killing people.

It was where he was meant to be.


End file.
